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Japan Attempts To Recreate Biosphere 2; A Look At Mars Rover Images; Columbia Space Shuttle Gets Memorial In Arlington Cemetery
Aired February 7, 2004 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN ANCHOR: Hi everybody, I'm Daniel Sieberg. Today on NEXT@CNN we'll have the latest pictures from Mars. And show you how images taken millions of miles away get into your living room.
We'll show you how you can recreate the hunt for Saddam Hussein and his sons, using some of the same intelligence that coalition troops used.
And we'll take you to Colorado to see how a weather research lab is helping to keep the ski slopes safe. All that, and more, on NEXT.
It's hard to imagine that the scientists at NASA could be any more excited than they've already been. In fact, they're already thrilled at the neighborhood where the rover Opportunity landed on Mars. And they're even more intrigued now that they're getting a good look at the soil beneath it.
Here's a look at the variety of shapes and colors of particles that the rover's cameras have detected. Now researchers are especially interested in these round objects. That's because spherical rocks and pebbles are sometimes formed under water.
Water, of course, could provide evidence of life. The spheres could also come from volcanos or meteors. Opportunity is sent to transmit many more images to NASA and Miles O'Brien reports from the lab that brings all of these cool pictures to the world.
MILES O'BRIEN (voice-over): Part webmaster, part TV producer, part scientist, Eric Dejong is the ultimate imagemaker for the stars. Not the hollywood types, the real ones in Pasadena home of NASA's jet propulsion laboratory.
ERIC DEJONG, JPL: We're working a deadline which runs back 24 hours. The most interesting images are often the ones that we just got.
O'BRIEN: It's early morning at JPL's digital image processing lab. And Dejong and his team are poring over a fresh batch of images from another world, readying them for viewing in ours.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 7838 pixels wide.
DEJONG: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 23,915 tall.
DEJONG: This I think is a color postcart right there.
O'BRIEN: The postcards have come a long way in 40 years of space travel. These are the first images fed back to Earth from another world, the place was the Moon and the spacecraft was Ranger, sent to scout out Apollo landing sites.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was the first instance of translating analog information through radio signals into a digital signal that one could put in the computer.
O'BRIEN: So you can put your digital camera beside WD-40 and cordless power tools, on the list of cool space spinoffs.
DEJONG: Put a little rectangle on it, a yellow rectangle. That way when we come in we'll know what we zoomed in to.
O'BRIEN: Spirit and Opportunity images are high definition. Good enough to fill a huge Imax movie screen, and unfortunately you can't fully appreciate it watching this story on plain old TV.
DEJONG: It's a question of what display do I have at home. Admittedly, when you're looking through a camera and only a small portion of the image on your TV screen has the surface of Mars, well then you can't see all of it.
O'BRIEN: The images are so large, so detailed, sometimes only hitting the print key will do. In this case, print with a capital P.
KRIS CAPARAO, DIGITAL IMAGING ENGINEER: There are just no projection system or, you know, digital imaging system other than hard copy to really do that. It's still a pretty valid tool.
O'BRIEN: This is for me to take home, right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As long as you can fit it in your wallet.
DEJONG: It's pretty exciting to be the first people to see the surface of Mars like this. I mean it's pretty exciting. That doesn't get old.
O'BRIEN: You get a chill?
DEJONG: I mean actually goes through your spine, you get a chill and it's exciting that you're actually the first person seeing in this way the surface of Mars. It's just incredible.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got plenty of room.
How much farther?
DEJONG: You're down about a quarter inch on your side.
O'BRIEN: The poster is posted, and now it is time for a quick huddle with the man who designed the camera, Jim Bell.
Look at that stuff.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No way you could get that kind of resolution. It's madness. You can't do that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On another planet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No way.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 100 million miles away.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay. Don deal. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: It's show time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 3, 2...
UNIDENTFIED FEMALE: Good morning. Welcome to NASA's jet propulsion laboratory.
O'BRIEN: Another day. Another sight for more eyes.
SIEBERG: You can find more on Mars via or Web site. That's at CNN.com/next.
The astronauts of the space shuttle Columbia now have a memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe dedicated the memorial Monday, a year and a day after the shuttle broke apart just before it was to land. More than 400 people, including former astronauts and family members of the Columbia crew attended the ceremony. The memorial features a bronze replica of a mission patch designed by crew members.
And a painting created in tribute to the Columbia astronauts was unveiled for family members at the national air and space museum in Washington this week. The painting is part of NASA's fine arts collection. Yes, NASA has a fine arts collection. More from Skip Loescher.
UNIDENTIIFED MALE: Booster ignition and liftoff of space shuttle Columbia.
SKIP LOESCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Columbia soared into space a little more than a year ago. No one even worrying about how the mission would end. For more than 40 years, NASA has chronicled its accomplishments and failures. Not just with words, but with paintings and music, as well.
BERT ULRICH, CURATOR NASA FINE ARTS PROGRAM: The idea was that art ca provide a legacy for future generations and that the space age would be a historical time period. LOESCHER: The latest addition to NASA's collection is entitled "Columbia Tribute." It joins about 800 works the space agency has commissioned since 1976 alone. Artist Barbara Prey created this work to honor the seven astronauts who died when Columbia broke up.
BARBARA PREY, ARTIST: I tried to make it just a positive celebration of the lives of the astronauts, because that's what it is. They were amazing people. And they followed their dream.
LOESCHER: In the past, artists, including the likes of Norman Rockwell, contributed to NASA's fine arts program.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why not think of art when you think of the space age for future generations.
LOESCHER: NASA spends roughly $65,000 a year on the program. The works can be seen on tour and at various NASA centers.
SIEBERG: We'll have more space news coming up a little later on NEXT. But this story is more down to Earth. It's about an experiment in Japan that organizers hope will pave the way for people to live in space.
Also ahead, and X-Rated twist on the logo of a popular search engine.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Okay. Everybody else has been talking about it, now it's our turn. That's right. It's the boob tube incident during the Super Bowl half-time show. What's the technology angle to this? Well, TiVo, the company that makes those popular digital video recorders said viewership striked up to 180 percent at the moment that Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction. Viewers used TiVo's ability to rewind live TV to view the infamous moment over and over and over again.
well, another tempest in a seacup so to speak, this one on the Web. You all know this logo for the google search engine. Which, by the way, has just been named the global brand of the year by the consultant group Interbrand. Well, a few weeks ago another Web site went online and you can probably tell by the name that it's billed as an adult search engine.
You can also see the similarity to the Google logo. The folks at Google say, while they do have a sense of humor, they also have to protect their trademark. They sent Booble a letter demanding that the Web site be taken down. They said no way, their site is a parody protected by the first amendment.
And the popularity of Google took down a Web site this week to mark the birthday of mathmetician Gaston Julia, Google made a special logo, that when clicked, would send Web surfers to sites about the man and his work.
Well, the top site was swamped and had to be shut down. It substituted this page asking whether Google should have asked permission to do what it did? Google says most sites it links to in such circumstances are big enough to handle extra traffic. But in the future, it will notify smaller sites if it thinks there might be a problem.
And it was no problem for the Microsoft site on Tuesday when the copycat version of the Mydoom worm was scheduled to attack. Mydoom.b had e-mailed itself to computers worldwide in preparation for a denial of service attack that's designed to overwhelm the Microsoft site. Apparently that version of Mydoom hadn't of spread as widely as the original worm which took town the Web site of a smaller software company last week. That worm was the fastest spreading e-mail virus ever.
Online voting was put to the test in Michigan this week. Voters were able to cast their ballots over the Internet before this weekend's state caucus. Jeff Flock has more.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm putting in my user name and pass word.
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The vote wasn't until Saturday.
UNIDENTIIFED MALE: I'm voting for Wesley Clark.
FLOCK: But 20-year-old Michigan state sophomore Adam Farnham made his choice for the Democratic nominee on Monday on the Internet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A couple of clicks and it was all done.
MARK BREWER, MICHIGAN DEMOCRATIC CHAIR: That was the main motivation for having Internet voting, to make voting easier and so more people can participate.
FLOCK: Michigan Democratic chair Mark Brewer calls it a success.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have to have to ward and then the precinct.
FLOCK: Hotlines lighting up and party workers busy, sending out instructions, how to do it electronically. Although, going to the polls on election day was an option, too.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's not working.
FLOCK: It wasn't perfect, Jaclyn Macek had trouble reaching the site.
JACLYN MACEK, VOTER: Unfortunately we have to deal with the clichs right now. As it gets worked out hopefully it gets better.
FLOCK: But if the 20-year-old savvy Kerry backer had trouble.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Change at my age is difficult to comprehend.
FLOCK: Imagine the folks here at Timber Ridge assisted living in East Lansing. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know us old folks, we are used to these new fangled computers.
FLOCK (on camera): What has to happen to make this viable in a general election?
DAVID ROHDE, POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSOR: Well, I think that by far the most important thing is solving the security problem.
FLOCK (voice-over): Michigan State University polysci professor David Rohde, says hack-proffing is job No 1.
JOEL JERGUSON, DEMOCRATIC PARTY ACTIVIST: One thing the Democratic party is about is equal access.
FLOCK: Joel Ferguson's also skeptical. He ran Jesse Jackson's successful 1988 presidential primary in Michigan, and thinks Democrats are forgetting who's on the Internet.
JERGUSON: The majority community has 46 percent access. Minority both hispanic and African-American are in the 23 percent.
FLOCK: Oh, Jaclyn did finally get to e-vote.
MACEK: My vote is official. You have voted for the following John Kerry.
FLOCK: And don't try to do it twice. It will catch you.
MACEK: Overall this works, yes.
ANNOUNCER: Later on NEXT@CNN, a new breed of chicken farm, can it help stop the spread of bird flu? But first researchers in Japan try to duplicate mother nature.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Remember Biosphere TWO? No it wasn't an sequel to that classic Polly Shore movie, we're talking about the ambitious experiment that tried to create a sealed, self-sufficient world inside a huge glass structure in the Arizona desert. Not Texas as we mistakenly told you last week.
Eight so-called biosphereians locked themselves inside in 1991 by a two-year stay. But they were plagued by crop failures, oxygen depletion and accusations of bad science.
Columbia University took over the facility in 1996 and for awhile its scientific credibility increased. But the University pulled out in december, leaving Biosphere in the hands of its millionaire owner. Although the science is over, Biosphere 2 still offers tours at 20 bucks a head. And there's talk of building subdivisions on the property.
So a discouraging story, right? Well, maybe not. A Japanese research institute is doing a similar, but less ambitious experiment in trying to avoid Biosphere 2's mistakes. Rebecca Mackinnon has the story.
REBECCA MACKINNON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Meet Japan's econauts, Osmau Komatsubata (ph) and Masinouri Shinohara (ph) are ecological pioneers. Welcome to mini Earth. In 2009, Shinohara and Komatsubata will be sealed into this self-contained environment for four months straight.
Between now and then, they'll be doing shorter stints, starting with just one week at a time over the next couple of years, then gradually building up as the system gets perfected.
(on camera): This is to keep everything very clean?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
MACKINNON (voice-over): My camera crew and I are their privileged guests inside what will eventually be a tightly closed ecosystem. If all works as planned, Miniearth could become the prototype for long-term human habitation in outer space.
Meanwhile, dozens of scientists and technicians are working hard to get everything ready for the lonely days ahead.
(on camera): It's just you and the goats?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
MACKINNON (voice-over): The animals, and the men will all be wearing electrocardiograms. Their vital data monitored constantly for signs of trouble. Of course, they'll have to grow all their own food.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This room is for rice harvesting. Rice is our main crop.
MACKINNON: The high-tech rice paddies are designed for greatest possible efficiency to prevent waste of water or minerals and to minimize production of carbon dioxide, too much of which could kill the men and goats.
They grow vegetables, too. Soybeans for protein, along with peanuts and safflower plants for oil. The trick is to keep planting and harvesting constantly in order to guarantee a consistent year- round supply. When it comes to their food, the econauts will do it all.
(on camera): So this will be your kitchen here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
MACKINNON: You'll do your own cooking? You're recycling all your garbage?
(voice-over): All garbage gets recycled for fertilizer and for minerals the men need to keep themselves alive and healthy. Everything gets recycled.
(on camera): This looks like a special toilet.
(voice-over): With the help of a high-tech urinal and toilet.
In the natural world, the Earth's atmosphere, soil, oceans and forests do that recycling job for us, but scientists here have concluded that a small system like Miniearth can't hope to duplicate mother Earth's constant job of recycling and rebalancing of all the minerals and gases that we need in just the right proportion to stay alive, without a little help.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is also the new technology.
MACKINNON: Dr. K.J. Nita, Miniearth's founder and mastermind, is trying to duplicate the miracles of mother Earth with a two-story barn full of high-tech machines.
(on camera): This is your invention?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe.
MACKINNON: Maybe?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe.
MACKINNON (voice-over): A veteran scientist who used to work at Japan's Space Exploration agency, Dr. Nita has put together machines that pump waste out, reprocess it, and pump it back in again in a more usable life-sustaining form.
The air inside Miniearth is constantly rebalanced, which Dr. Nita hopes will prevent a carbon dioxide imbalance that led to the failure of Biosphere 2.
(on camera): So all of this...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
MACKINNON: All of this stuff, all of these machines. Is duplicating the work of microbes?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, that's right.
MACKINNON: Wow.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow.
MACKINNON: It's hard to put this in a space ship.
KANJI NITTA: Yes, yes, this is a very big system. However, all the space exploration, it needs to make a more compact system.
MACKINNON (voice-over): But this project is not being funded by Japan's space program, which Dr. Nitta says doesn't have the budget.
(on camera): The dream behind this cutting-edge facility may be the exploration of outer space, but the actual funding for this project is coming out of the deep pockets of Japan's nuclear power industry.
(voice-over): The Miniearth project is housed here in an out of the way part of northern Japan, next to the site of an experimental nuclear reactor, and a reprocessing facility for nuclear fuel.
The Japanese government is funding a number of research projects related to the effects of radiation on the environment.
(on camera): So it will give a lot of data about radioactivity?
NITTA: Yes, yes, that's right.
MACKINNON: And its absorption into the environment?
NITTA: Yes, yes.
MACKINNON: Kumatsubata (ph) and Shinohara (ph) will not be exposed to harmful radiation, but by tracing the movement of carbon dioxide through Miniearth, and through their bodies, scientists can gain better understanding of how radioactive elements would behave in the event of a nuclear accident.
Carefully and cautiously working to perfect a completely self- contained, and self-sustaining world. And if Miniearth is successful, something like it may one day help the Earth's next generation of pioneers to boldly go and live where no man has lived before.
SIEBERG: Speaking of things in miniature you won't want to miss the cool pictures coming up in the next half hour of our program. We'll show you a little art. And we do mean little.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
SIEBERG: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN. Well, a question facing health officials: Is killing millions of chickens the best way to control bird flu? Experts meeting in Rome this week say vaccinating animals could be more effective. More than 40 million chickens have already been slaughtered in Asia, and as Tom Mintier reports, even the most high-tech chicken farms aren't safe from the disease.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM MINTIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is supposedly the chicken farm of the future. Owned by CP Group in Thailand, it is said to be state-of-the-art, computer controlled and resistant to disease and infection from the outside.
SARASIN VIRAPHOI, EXEC. OF CP GROUP: We are able to control -- you know, the entire production chain. So, starting from the feed, to processing.
MINTIER: The closed system may be better, but not perfect.
(on camera): Have you had any infections at all in your closed system?
VIRAPHOI: Yes, but relatively few.
MINTIER (voice-over): This mass slaughter of young chicks is from a closed system. Officials say nine out of ten infections are from open farms, where bird flu has been discovered. Hans Wagner is the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture, or FAO, senior officer in Bangkok.
(on camera): Have you discovered yet why there are infections in closed systems?
HANS WAGNER, U.N. FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION: No, we have not and that is definitely something which we are investigating once we have the diseases under control.
MINTIER (voice-over): Recent outbreaks have occurred away from the suspected centers, and these new bird flu cases are a major concern for health officials.
WAGNER: This is worrisome because we have to check how does the disease spread to these other places.
MINTIER: More than 40 million chickens and ducks have been slaughtered across Asia as countries attempt to control the outbreak of the disease. Health officials are also concerned with protection of the workers conducting the slaughter. Many are not using safety equipment recommended by the World Health Organization, or WHO, as they conduct the slaughter.
(on camera): While the investigations continue into how the disease is moving and whether the much-feared human-to-human transmission of the virus may take off, officials do say the closed farms carry a smaller risk, and apparently are not totally immune to bird flu.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Can virtual reality help cancer patients cope? Well, scientists at Duke University study patients taking chemotherapy, giving them VR goggles that let them escape to a different world during the treatments. The patients had less fatigue, stress, and nausea from the chemo when they were distracted by the virtual reality. The researchers are doing a larger study to examine whether age, type of cancer, or other factors influence how well the VR distraction works.
And research on how the brain stores memories could help provide clues to diseases like alzheimer's. One of the scientists contributing to that research is a teenage whiz who says he's just a regular kid. Peter Viles has his story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is seventh period at Stuyvesant High School, one of the most competitive public high schools in New York City. And while this may look like your average gym class, underneath all those swim caps are some of the brightest teenage minds in math and science.
Standing out in the crowd, Yin Li. The 17-year-old recently won a $100,000 college scholarship in the Siemans/Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science and Technology.
YIN LI, SENIOR STUYVESANT H.S.: I studied a protein that can be involved in long-term memory -- in stabilizing long-term memory.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can see how you can grow another synapses...
VILES: Yin studied under Nobel Prize-winning neurobiologist, Eric Kandel. The Columbia professor says Yin's research is fundamental to brain function and may help give further insight into other memory storage dysfunctions.
ERIC KANDEL, PROFESSOR, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: Alzheimer's disease, Fragile X, Down Syndrome, all of these horrible disorders have a reflection in memory storage. And this protein that he has been able to study gives us further insights into how memory storage occurs, so it's a very valuable addition.
LI: You have two formulas, first it's (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
VILES: A high school senior with a grade point average in the high 90s and 1,560 on the SAT, accepted early at Harvard, and knocking on the door at MIT, Yin still calls himself a regular kid.
LI: I hope I'm a regular kid. I don't think I'm like really that different. I think it's just that you work hard and you sort of -- you know, if you just get one step ahead of other people, then it just seems like you're a genius, but -- you know, it's just -- you're just one step ahead, and that's it.
VILES: Keeping that step ahead was ingrained in Yin at an early age. He and his parents moved to the United States from Shanghai when he was nine years old.
LI: When I came to the United States, I was sort of at a disadvantage in terms of language. And the mentality that I put myself...
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(NEWS BREAK)
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Good afternoon. I'm Carol Lin at the CNN Center in Atlanta. We are going directly to a news conference in Sarasota, Florida. The very latest on the Carlie Brucia murder investigation. We're expecting any moment to hear from Carlie's parents.
"BRUCE," BRUCIA FAMILY FRIEND: ...not all this other stuff that we're hearing on the media. OK? Those were the issues we wanted to talk about.
OK.
So please don't believe all the rumors that you hear. And things that people are coming up and telling you. Some of them may not even be relevant to this. We just need to focus on why this happened. Why this guy took this child, and did what he did. Also like to...
QUESTION: Just what specifically are you saying is a rumor?
BRUCE: I can't comment on that. I'm not going to comment on that, right now.
QUESTION: We're not going to give any credibility to the rumors that are being spread.
BRUCE: Correct.
QUESTION: Are you talking about rumors against the family or...
BRUCE: Yes, rumors against the family.
JESSIE HUBER, BRUCIA FAMILY FRIEND: I mean, the family right now is in despair. Their child was murdered. And -- you know, any negative, that has no impact on what happened to this child. A monster came and caught her in the back of the Evie's Car Wash and killed her three miles away. That's what this is about, not about anything else. And the message that you should all be getting out is, how we can protect all of our children across the world. Because, this is the first time you ever caught it on tape, but it's not the first time it ever happened.
QUESTION: Could you tell us your name, ma'am?
HUBER: I'm Jessie Huber, I'm a friend of the family.
QUESTION: What does the family want to tell other moms and dads out there that might be concerned about their children? Did they say anything to you to relay to us?
HUBER: Well, we really haven't been talking about that -- you know, we haven't really had much conversation on -- you know how do we protect our children. I'm a mother of three. I'm originally from New York, and I was paranoid with my first one. I am -- I'm afraid, as well. Not just the children of Sarasota, but I think some parents are really afraid. And I'm going to be on top of my children, I mean, I'm not going to let them out in the front yard anymore. I'm graced that I have two huge dogs in my backyard, that's where they'll be playing.
BRUCE: I just hope this is a wake-up call to all these kids that say -- and give their parents a hassle about wanting to go out and do something.
QUESTIONS: Weren't you wanting to talk about a fund? Could you want to talk about that?
BRUCE: Yes, sir. OK, we're setting up a -- the family of Carlie Brucia Foundation. All money, and all money will be sent to Sarasota County Sheriff's Victims Service Center. The address is 5957 Cattleman Lane Road, 34232.
HUBER: And, that's Sarasota, Florida.
BRUCE: That's Sarasota, Florida. I'm sure some flyers will be made up and posted around and everything else. We just wanted to let yous know. Also, I was informed, next weekend, there's going to be a bike rally that's going to go from Sarasota to Lakeland. Anybody who'd like to join in on that, I'm not sure what time. I'm sure that will be released more a bit later this week.
QUESTION: Bruce, can you tell us how the family is doing today?
BRUCE: As well as to be expected. I mean, they're holding up just -- you know, the best they can. They have other family members and friends coming in from other states -- coming in, and trying to keep them together.
QUESTIONS: Bruce, can you tell us about -- the home were slumber party was at, maybe across the street or next door...
BRUCE: I'm sorry, what's your...
QUESTION: ...supposedly?
BRUCE: I can't talk about that, sir. I don't have no knowledge about that.
QUESTION: We knew yesterday, Bruce, that Susan had some health concerns. Can you tell us how she is feeling today?
BRUCE: She's feeling a little bit better. She's just -- she's fine. She's fine that way. Mentally -- I -- you know, she's just disrupt from getting the information and hearing what's going on.
QUESTION: Bruce, you had mentioned to me earlier that you had some concern about the judge and the threats that they have received?
BRUCE: OK, yeah -- you know, we don't need another murder. We don't need another loss in our society, today. I know that right now there are threats, the judge had given a press conference this morning. To me that's uncalled for. Yes, this guy should have been put in jail, and put away somewhere in the cracks our justice system failed us. Whose fault it is, we don't know. But please, we don't need -- we don't need something like that happening again in our neighborhood ir in our county.
QUESTION: You said that there was a rumor but you didn't want to define the rumor. Perhaps it would be better to tell us where the rumor is being printed or broadcast so we can discover what you're saying is incorrect.
BRUCE: Well, to be honest with you, you -- somebody from the media got it out.
QUESTION: Can you tell us which newspaper, which radio...
BRUCE: I'm not irrelevant to say that because I'm really not sure. It was just seen on -- it was seen on television.
QUESTION: We're just kind of stumped, here -- what you're talking about...
QUESTION: How can we deal with a rumor if we don't know what it is?
QUESTION: We want to report accurate information...
BRUCE: Right, I don't know -- I'm not sure what channel it was. All I know is I got a phone call from out of state, and it was out of Chicago, Illinois, I got it from so --
QUESTION: And was questioning you about something relating to the family?
BRUCE: Yes.
QUESTION: Something negative in the past in their past or what?
BRUCE: Yes, and it was somebody I know. I can't give this call a -- I can give this person a call back and find out exactly what channel it was and all that, I didn't ask. I didn't think that was irrelevant, right now.
QUESTION: Are people trying to make relationships between people that -- where relationships don't exist?
BRUCE: I'm not sure what your question is.
QUESTION: When you're talking about these rumors, these rumors that you say are untrue, are they trying to make relationships between people (UNINTELLIGIBLE) between suspect and victim?
HUBER: No, no. Those aren't -- no. These are personal attacks on the family -- you know.
QUESTION: Jessie, you seem to know a little bit about these attacks, could you specify a little bit?
HUBER: Actually, you know, he called me and a...
BRUCE: OK.
HUBER: ...he told, he's like, "you got to come down they're saying something about the family." I -- I actually got a night's sleep. I woke up about an hour ago, so I don't even -- I haven't been watching any TV, I don't know what they are, either. I...
QUESTION: So, you're suggesting it came in the form of a phone call as a question from a reporter, rather than a printed or broadcast piece of information. Is that accurate?
BRUCE: Pretty much.
REPORTER: OK. QUESTION: What has the action been to coming by the house and dropping off flowers?
BRUCE: The support of the community, they love it. They -- they're -- it's just great how this community pulled together, and they're showing their respects.
QUESTION: All right. Jessie, can you tell us anything about any plans for a memorial service or a funeral?
HUBER: You know -- I know Sue was talking to the Sarasota sheriff's...
QUESTION: Can you face that way so these guys can see you?
HUBER: Yeah. And, I'm not 100 percent sure, but I think the funeral is going to be on Thursday.
QUESTION: You don't know where or any details?
HUBER: Believe it or not, I woke up in the middle of the night and they were saying that I believe it's going to be at Church of the Palms. And think it was...
QUESTION: So, is that down here on Bee Ridge Road?
HUBER: Bee Ridge Road, right.
QUESTION: Did Carlie's family attend the church regularly?
HUBER: No.
QUESTION: Did they attend any church at all or are affiliated with any church whatsoever?
HUBER: I don't think so.
QUESTION: Now, did the family ask you guys to come out and make this statement or did you guys take it upon yourself?
HUBER: No, the family asked. And it wasn't one specific person, it was the family. Come out and say something.
What does the family need most right now? What else (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
HUBER: They -- you know, well every -- you know, every -- I don't know if everybody's passed by the house, but I'll tell you every petal on every flower -- you know, makes us stronger. Because you don't know what you're going to get back from your community when something like this happens, you don't know if they're not going to do anything. And it's just been overwhelming. I mean, it's -- it's amazing.
QUESTION: How about the companies around (UNINTELLIGIBLE) reaching out? Can you tell us about that? HUBER: Believe it or not, their TV went out yesterday. And the local rent-a-center came and brought them a new TV and told them -- you know, use it as long as you need to. And there's been so much food delivered by -- you know, moms cooking, and stores dropping off -- Publics, Cash and Carry, all of them, they brought us another refrigerator so we can have a place to put the food. Pepsi dropped off cases of water and soda, ice tea, and -- you know, it's -- I think that's what kept us going, every single day until we found the news out -- you know, that people, when they were driving by and saying -- you know, "we're praying for you" and -- you know, "we love you" and all that stuff, we'd be all -- you know, we were always sitting outside, and it made us feel good. You know, it gave us hope.
QUESTION: What was it like when they found the news out, the moment they found out Carlie had been found?
HUBER: Um. I -- you know, to me, I think it was the worst moment of my life. We were all outside, and as soon as I -- we saw -- well, as soon as I saw one of the detectives, I knew exactly what was happening, because I knew he was with homicide. And he had been there the first day, but really hadn't been coming back and forth. And the way that they do it is, if there's any friends in the house, they'll ask them to leave and they'll talk to them in private as a family. And then, whoever Sue or Steve or Joe wanted to talk to, we would come in first and then eventually everybody else would know. And it was the first time we heard a bit of information that, instead of Sue bringing us in, she came running out saying, "he murdered my baby." And -- you know, what do you say? I mean, I think for the first three hours we just -- there was no reaction, but that we were numb. We gotta go?
I gotta go. Thank you very much.
LIN: All right. That is it. You were just hearing from Jessie Huber, a friend of the family, as well as another gentleman, trying to dispel some rumors which they refuse to actually go into any detail. But obviously getting questions from all over the country about the family's reactions, how they're taking the news, what they plan on doing next. In fact, Jessie Huber was mentioning a foundation they were setting up and a possibility of a funeral as soon as this Thursday.
I'm Carol Lin at the CNN Center in Atlanta. As soon as we have more on the Carlie Brucia murder and all the other news happening today, of course we're going to bring it to you.
SIEBERG: A new PC game called "Kuma: War" is hoping to merge the interactivity of your computer with the real time nature of television and one of the missions in the game takes place in Mosul, Iraq, which is where Uday and Qusay Hussein were cornered and subsequently killed. We can give you an idea of where Mosul, Iraq is. This is not part of the game, we should say, but it helps to illustrate where we're going to be talking about in the game. It does try to be as realistic as possible.
Now, joining us to help talk about this game is Scott Thomas, our resident gamer here from CNN.com, an enviable job.
Scott, you're in the game right now, you're in Mosul wandering around trying to find Uday and Qusay's house. Do you have to follow a particular course in the game or can you kind of do whatever you want, even though it's based on real events?
SCOTT THOMAS, CNN RESIDENT GAMER: Correct. The mission objectives are very laid out. They keep it kind of blockade to keep you focused on those objectives, just so you don't become lost within the map.
SIEBERG: OK, and the creators of the game, "Kuma: War," say they have talked to a few different military advisers to try to make this as realistic as possible. They also say they're using publicly available information whether it's satellite photos and intel, it's not classified, so they are trying to make it realistic, but not trying to go over the line. Scott, does it feel realistic as you're wandering around?
THOMAS: Correct. Yeah they bring urban warfare to a virtual battle ground, and it's very immersive.
SIEBERG: And there are a lot of other war games out there, we should say. Whether it's "Battlefield 1942: Call of Duty," even the Army has their own game with "America's Army." So, it's a very popular place to try and put a game on the market, right now. And Scott, would you feel like it's the kind of game that does have that military-style play where you're playing with a squad -- few other team members?
THOMAS: Yeah, it's very team based, and many of the strategies you my learn from other games you can apply to this one and maybe the military use this as a training, as well for urban warfare.
SIEBERG: Scott, thanks so much for joining us to help us out. The game "Kuma: War" comes out February 27. It's only available online to download onto your computer and play, $10 a month is the prescription fee. And every month they say they're going to update it with more current world events and military missions.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Still to come, a lot of art is hidden right under our noses, all you need to find it is a microscope, or an internet connection.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID KIRKPATRICK, "FORTUNE" SENIOR EDITOR: We are at the beginning of the age of wireless data. Most phones are still primarily used for voice. The fact is we have a 12 key keyboard that basically was invented at the very earliest days of the touchtone phones, well over 40 years ago, and we've just taken that input device from the wired phone and essentially shrunk it and put it on the cell phone. That's really no longer sufficient.
A little start-up called DigitWireless has a keyboard that is dramatically different and better than anything that I've ever seen. Their keyboard basically allows you, with one touch, to have all the numbers, all the letters and all the punctuation you need to send any kind of a message. That essentially means being able to take all the applications that we use our computers for and do them on a cell phone. There are only two things stopping us from doing that: The display isn't big enough, and the input device, or the keyboard, is inferior. This is going to eliminate that second problem.
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SIEBERG: Well, weather science has come a long way since the first U.S. weather bureau was established. A case in point, a unique lab perched atop a mountain in the ski resort community of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Rob Marciano reports.
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ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Snowcapped mountains and deep blue sky here in the heart of ski country Colorado. We're in Steamboat Springs, the top of Mount Warner, where today even, though it's bright and sunny and nice and calm, they've had a fabulous ski and snow season and it's turning out to be one of the best in years. Not only do skiers come to the top of this mountain to ski down and have some fun, but scientists come to the top, as well. They go inside that building, that's the Storm Peak Lab, to do some hard-core scientific research.
Let's go inside and take a look.
(voice-over): Storm Peak is one of a kind -- a science lab on top of a ski resort. Run by the University of Nevada, it conducts pollution studies, snow quality analysis, and winter storm forecasting.
RANDY BORYS, LAB DIRECTOR: We find that that storm can produce snowfall that may be on the order of 20 percent less when there's pollution present, versus what we would consider to be normal snowfall. If you were to put that in dollars, that'd probably be worth into the billions in terms of water value.
MARCIANO: Although my crew and I considered this sunny day a blessing, Storm Peak researchers look forward to the snow days. Sitting at well over 10,000 feet the lab spends much of the winter submerged in cloud cover.
BORYS: Our research here on snow is especially important in the West, where most of the water supply is derived from snow pack. Anything that affects the snow pack's quantity is going to affect the water supply downstream. Virtually from here at the divide, all the way down to L.A. MARCIANO: While environmental studies are its main mission, the lab also helps keep the mountain safe for the vacation area's many skiers and snowboarders.
BORYS: We provide the ski area with information on winds and snowfall, so that they -- you know, primarily, the patrol utilizes our data for avalanche control, up here. They see the winds have been 50, 60 miles an hour overnight, they'll be out here throwing bombs in our backyard to make sure that the snow is stable.
MARCIANO: The facility is also open year round to university students and scientists. Visitors can stay overnight in the lab, which feels more like a college dorm than a research center. This week, students from the University of Nevada were in town conducting experiments.
RYAN KANGAS, STUDENT: This instrument here is a thermometer/hydrometer it takes the temperature and humidity readings as I go down the mountain. I just put it on as I ski down.
MARCIANO: Storm Peak's researchers say, this year, the snow in Steamboat Springs is clean and plentiful, a fact we enjoyed as we skied down the mountain.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Well, we enjoyed looking into this next story, and if you don't think of microscopes and telescopes as tools for artists, then you haven't been looking at the right websites.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG (voice-over): With the evolution of microscopic graphic and cyber technologies, several sites now feature images that often look more like artwork than science.
Molecular expressions at Florida State University, puts the whole world, and the galaxy, at your fingertips. The site incorporates satellite images, artist rendering and photographs to take curious visitors on a wild ride from the microscope through the telescope and beyond.
And it may not be the Guggenheim, but your computer could be hiding a unique art gallery. These silicon creatures are actually on the surface of hundreds of computer chips. They're only a fraction of the size of a human hair, put thereby engineers at companies like Hewlett-Packard. You can think of it as a signature of sorts. Michael Davidson discovered them in the early '90s while photographing the surface of integrated circuits. More than 300 cartoons are now featured on his site. The newest images are these little guys on the chips of NASA rovers "Spirit" and "Opportunity." Currently. wandering the red planet and proving that there are Martians on Mars, after all.
Other websites like the appropriately named Microscopic Science Art puts liquids in a whole new light, by displaying common elements, like water and plastic, in rather uncommon ways. And it's a bug's life on MicroAngela, a site that features microscopic images of insects, vividly colorized to add an artistic touch that's reminiscent of Andy Warhol. Special equipment, like electron and light microscopes used to capture these images can cost in the thousands. But with digital microscopes going for at little as $750 you too, can get into this digital game.
So, whether you're giddy for gold or diamonds are your best friend these, websites give everybody a new way to take a closer look.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: You can find out how to find these small world websites on our little website at CNN.com/next.
All right, well, that's all the time we have for now. But, here's what's coming up next week.
An environmental success story. The oceans and reefs around the Caribbean nation of Belize were threatened by over fishing. We'll show you how people from five villages came up with a plan to save their little piece of paradise.
That's coming up on NEXT, until then let us hear from you. You can send us an e-mail any time at NEXT@CNN.com.
Thanks so much for joining us, this week. For all of us on CNN's SciTech beat, I'm Daniel Sieberg. We'll see you next time.
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